


Tuesday, Wednesday, Break My Heart

by TheWalkingGrimes



Series: Tales of District Four [7]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Dissociation, F/M, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to sex trafficking, mentioned Johanna Mason, mentioned suicide (off-screen OC)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28038105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWalkingGrimes/pseuds/TheWalkingGrimes
Summary: Finnick realizes he loves Annie on a Tuesday.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Series: Tales of District Four [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018845
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46





	Tuesday, Wednesday, Break My Heart

Finnick realizes he loves Annie on a Tuesday.

It’s a few weeks after the end of the 71st Games, and Annie’s been distant. Lost. He thinks that likely would’ve happened no matter what the Games had been like, because they’re mandatory viewings even if you’re a traumatized Victor who regularly gets flashbacks of decapitated heads. 

But it just so happens that this year’s Games are some of the goriest that Finnick has seen since he’s been alive. He knows _why,_ would’ve suspected even if every Capitolite he met wasn’t so eager to speculate on it - last year’s Games were boring (aside from one gory ‘highlight’), dissatisfying, a disappointing conclusion. 

_(“Johanna’s such a delight, what a clever girl!” His date for the evening trills as she talks beyond Finnick like he’s not even there, just a piece of arm candy to trot around - a living, breathing status symbol that exemplifies her wealth even more than the obscene diamond bracelet around her wrist. “What a breath of fresh air, after last year’s pitiful Victor - what even_ was _her name anyway?”_

_“Does it matter?” Her friend laughs._

_He should be happy, relieved that their interest in her is so fleeting, dismissive. Yet he can’t help the anger that bites in, like acid in his throat._

Who are you to judge her? _He wants to ask them, but never will._

_Instead, Finnick forces himself to laugh with them.)_

Finnick thinks about Annie almost the entire time he’s away.

It isn’t intentional. Every year, he survives his time in the Capitol by packing and unpacking boxes. There is District 4 Finnick, and there is Mentor Finnick, and there is Camera Finnick, and then there’s… well, whatever it is that he turns into when he’s with his patrons. 

Sometimes he has to shuffle between them rapidly and occasionally they’ll bleed into each other - but the one rule is that _District 4 Finnick_ stays firmly at home where he belongs. It’s a strategy he developed when he realized that thinking of home and his family and _what the hell must they think of me?_ made it nearly impossible for him to be who - _what_ \- he needed to be in the Capitol.

The problem is, Annie can’t be packed away so neatly.

He thinks about her during the bloodbath, worries at her reaction to the gratuitous close-up shots of death and gore. He thinks of her when his tributes die. He even thinks of her when one of his patrons kisses at his shoulder, and Finnick feels a flash of sensory memory of Annie falling asleep against that same spot (he has to disguise it as being overcome with lust when he jerks away in alarm and offence crosses his patron’s face).

Something strange thrums through his blood on the trip home - Finnick hasn’t felt anything aside from dull relief and even lingering dread during the train ride back to Four in years - and he doesn’t realize what it is until he’s nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to get back to Victor’s Isle.

_Anticipation._

He stops by his own house to drop off his things and forgoes his usual ritual of submerging himself in the ocean for hours in favor of a quick shower to get the last lingering dredges of the Capitol off him. 

Then he heads over to Mags’s house and feels something inside him lighten at the sight of Annie sitting at the kitchen table, staring off into nothing.

“Hiya Annie.” He greets, surprising himself with the light kiss he drops on her head. It’s a habit inherited from his mother, a greeting that means _we’re family._ He’s been doing it to Mags for years, and Annie for the last few months before the Games. There was a small part of him that wasn’t sure if he would be able to stand to touch her after he got back. “Did you miss me?”

Her eyes flick toward his and then quickly away. Finnick’s stomach drops.

“Finnick?” Annie asks, sounding lost. “Are you here?”

“I am.” Finnick sits down next to her, slowly so as not to startle her, and carefully takes her hand. “I’m back.”

Annie nods, and none of the swooping joy he felt upon seeing her is reflected in her face. She doesn’t look like she ever sees him there. “Is it over?” 

“It’s over.” He promises her. _For now._ Finnick rubs a thumb over the back of her hand, willing her to look at him, to focus on him. She doesn’t. “It’s over, it’s safe. You can come back now Annie.”

She doesn’t.

_(Later, once Annie is in bed, Mags stays up to talk to him in a low voice about Athena Ford._

_Finnick doesn’t know what Athena had done to upset the Capitol, but when Mica Ford was Reaped, no one stepped forward to Volunteer. Maybe it was just because he was trained, even if he wasn’t a potential. Maybe it was just a coincidence._

_Maybe pigs could grow wings and fly, too._

_Athena apparently agreed, or she just couldn’t stand the thought of life without her son, because after Mica was killed she hung herself from her window._

_Annie was the one who found her.)_

Weeks pass, and even though little pieces of Annie start to come back, she’s still stuck. Trapped in that place she was right after her Games, or after her father’s funeral. 

_It’s probably someplace nice,_ Finnick thinks, and feels selfish for wanting her back here with him. Because he can see when she’s trying to stay present how much pain it causes her. Like she’s clawing and dragging her way to the surface, when really it would be far easier to let the current sweep her away.

But she’s a fighter. That hasn’t changed.

On that fated Tuesday, they’re just sitting on Mags’s back porch, silent. Annie had a bad night, full of nightmares, and she hasn’t spoken all day. Finnick spent the first hour or so trying to coax her into a conversation, then began telling her stories, and eventually ran out of things to say.

Finally, Annie breaks the silence.

“I just, I hate this.” She mumbles into her arms, ignoring - or not noticing - the cup of chamomile tea on the little table in front of her. Her throat is torn and ragged from screaming so he put a little extra honey and lemon in the tea to help soothe it, but none of that matters if she won’t even _drink_ it.

Finnick, who had been beginning to nod off, jerks up in surprise at the sound of her voice. “Hate what?” He asks, keeping his tone nonchalant and conversational, like they’re just speculating on the weather.

She peeks up, staring out into the waves over the cliffs beyond Mags’s porch railing, not looking at him. “Being broken.”

 _You’re not,_ Finnick wants to say. He pushes down the urge. Unlike when Annie calls herself ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’, he doesn’t think she means it as a dismissal of herself and her feelings. 

She’s been hurt and she’s been damaged and she’ll never be the same girl she was before the arena. Not totally. There’s nothing wrong with mourning that.

“I broke a toaster once.” Finnick tells her.

It’s such an odd, out of context thing for him to say, that he manages to get Annie to look at him. 

Encouraged by her interest - even if it’s mostly bewilderment - Finnick goes on. “It was a couple months _after._ I was pretty jumpy. One day I was home by myself, making breakfast, and I zoned out while I was toasting some bread. When the toaster went off, I was so out of it, that I freaked out at the sound and threw it straight out the window. _Woosh!_ Only, it wasn’t really a ‘woosh’, because the window was closed, so I broke the glass. When I realized what I’d done, I was so embarrassed. I destroyed the evidence - threw the broken toaster in the ocean - then crafted some ridiculous story about how a gull had crashed into the window and flew away with the toaster.”

For a moment, Annie just stares at him.

Then, her lips twitch up.

And then _,_ the most extraordinary thing happens.

She _laughs._

It’s bright and clear and it fills Finnick with the same feeling he’d had when he saw her again a few weeks ago, and he watches in awe as Annie’s entire face scrunches up with mirth.

_What the hell is this feeling?_

“Did - did anyone actually _believe_ you?” Annie manages to gasp out between giggles.

“Well, no.” Finnick can’t hold back his own chuckle - Annie’s laughter might just be the most contagious thing he’s ever heard. “But I think they were too confused about _why_ I would possibly lie about that to really question it. Anyway, I told a lot of tall tales as a kid.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” She teases him, and her eyes are brilliant and _present_ and she’s laughing at him again and it’s the most beautiful thing Finnick has ever seen.

He thinks he’d do just about anything to make her laugh like that. Anything to keep her smiling and happy, even if it’s at his expense - _especially_ if it’s at his expense.

And it slams into him, the realization heavy with joy and fear. 

Oh. _Oh._

_Fuck._

“Have you got any other tall tales for me?” Annie asks, just a hint of shyness creeping up the blush on her nose, but he can see by the jut of her jaw that she’s determined, she’s _trying,_ she wants to stay here with him. 

So Finnick - even though every instinct in him is screaming _run you idiot_ \- stays too.

“Depends, have I ever told you the story about the moose and the dock?”

“A _moose?”_

“Yeah, a moose.”

They stay up late sharing stories, each more ridiculous than the last. Annie eventually drifts off, falls asleep on his shoulder, finally at peace for the first time in weeks.

Finnick stays awake, unable to move, Annie’s breath delicate and warm against his neck. 

His heart thrums wildly with that same mix of elation and terror that has refused to leave him ever since Annie laughed and knocked his world off its axis.

 _I love you,_ he thinks, waiting for those words to ring false in his head. He’s said them so many times, to so many people he hates. _I’m in love with you._

But he could never hate Annie. And he could never do anything to hurt her.

So Finnick doesn’t say anything, just stays as still as possible, letting Annie keep her safety and peace with him and his friendship.

Anything more would be a curse.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I headcanon Annie as having PTSD flashbacks and also dissociative tendencies developed as a maladaptive coping mechanism. 
> 
> I just want to be clear that I'm not in any way trying to romanticize mental health disorders. The world that Finnick and Annie live in is one where they don't really have an opportunity to heal from their trauma (partly because triggers exist everywhere, and partly because their trauma - especially in Finnick's case - is ongoing), and they are able to find a safe space in each other.
> 
> In our world, it's definitely not the ideal relationship anyone should be looking for. Or at least, it shouldn't be seen as a fix for anyone struggling with their mental health. Love is wonderful, but not a substitute for self-love and self-healing.
> 
> At any rate, this fic isn't really about Finnick loving Annie and 'saving her', but I just wanted to be clear since that's sometimes a troublesome trope with this ship, and I am sensitive to the idea of young girls especially reading this and thinking that all they need is a Finnick to make their problems go away.


End file.
